Even more shocking will be the rest of the world shouting & screaming at Canada.. as well as moving against us, if we let the evolving fascism, strident ignorance and anti environment theology of The Harper Government persist in atrocities against nature and environment and the peoples those ecosystems sustain.

What a putrid & ignorant legacy Stephen Harper has earned. Unfortunately.. in his ignorance or pathological arc, he's dragged Canada and Canadians into extreme jeopardy, ridicule and a teetering & withering state of freedom and democracy.

Personally I don't care if he wants to implode, retire, or become a lobbyist for hire..I believe he could provide some sort of service to China via his tainted connections to the resource sector and has beens like Preston Manning, or fairy tale think n twink tanks.. or he could sell his rip, strip and screw indigenous cultures knowhow to even more Canadian based or registered resource hogs and environmental butchers active in South America or elsewhere.. like Africa.

Somebody should corner this dim twit we somehow elected in Calgary.. and try to determine if he has even basic understanding of hydraulic fracturing.. or the difference between fresh water and salt water, or wild salmon vs farmed salmon, or no whales vs live whales, or just dig into his views on fascism .. electoral fraud .. the future of China .. or let us know why he hates Canada's First Nations so much .. and is able to attract sanctimonious losers that are A-Ok with his ignorance and un-Canadian behavior

Harper's sins are indeed lengthy, Salamander, and like you, I strongly resent the fact that he has dragged us as a nation down into the mud. On the world stage, most will not distinguish between citizens and the government, and to a certain extent, I suppose, world opprobrium is earned, given that our democracy elected him. Those who chose not to vote are as guilty, in my view, as those who voted for the Conservatives, and only collective and engaged action in the next election can start the country on the long road to rehabilitation.

Albertans have known of their water vulnerabilities for a good long time. Peter Lougheed even wrote an impassioned, page-long, op-ed in the G&M urging the feds to block commercial interests seeking to sell BC glacier runoffs, fearing that would eliminate our NAFTA exemption. Lougheed argued that Alberta would desperately need that BC water in due course.

So, facing an obvious water shortage that was poised to become critical eventually, what do these rednecks do? Instead of treating that scarce resource as a commons to be used for the betterment of all Albertans, they commodify it and disburse water rights free of charge to their chosen flock in the process excluding or depriving other Albertans of access to this essential provincial resource.

How do the excluded undo something as patently discriminatory as that? Do they take to the streets with pitchforks and torches and storm the legislature?

This report also makes me wonder why a province enduring permanent water scarcity would squander so much on the Tar Sands and put groundwater resources at risk from tailing ponds and fracking? I hope that if British Columbia's water resources are called upon to answer Alberta's shortages that we get full, fair market value for our natural capital.